


Comme un oiseau rebelle

by crookedspoon



Series: The Sound by Which I Live and Die [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Community: holmestice, Crossdressing, Français | French, Inspired by Music, Inspired by Poetry, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Pre-Series, Resolved Sexual Tension, Shotgunning, Sibling Incest, Teasing, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-17 11:50:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft has read Wilde – he knows about temptation and wonders whether the man had been thinking about Sherlock when he penned his famous aphorism.</p><p>  <i>And certainly, it's not appropriate behaviour, but neither is Mycroft's when his eyes travel up the length of Sherlock's shin (cataloguing the flexing muscles beneath) to where it disappears beneath the folds at the knee – and his tongue wants to follow.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Comme un oiseau rebelle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bivouac](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=bivouac).



> Title inspired by George Bizet's "Carmen." It means "Like a rebellious bird."
> 
> I know you'd have preferred something shorter, but the boys didn't listen. I hope you can enjoy it anyway. Many, many thanks to billiethepoet for last-minute beta-reading, and my undying love to Neurotoxia for all the support throughout.
> 
> ETA: Underlined phrases now display tool-tips with translations if you hover over them. Hope that makes reading easier.

_Now he runs away, but he'll soon pursue you;_  
_Gifts he now rejects--soon enough he'll give them;_  
_Now he doesn't love you, but soon his heart will_  
_Burn, though unwilling._  


—Sappho, "Hymn to Aphrodite",  
translated by Elizabeth Vandiver (adapted)

  
Part of why he hesitates to return home is the demand on his time, and increasingly, the attention from Sherlock's side. Something has changed between them, something significant. His brother stirs a desire in him that is altogether unhealthy – not only because it drives him to sweets for consolation, a desperate and entirely unsatisfactory way to curb his needs, but also because the drink has found its way into his life. And mummy does so hate to see him turn out like his father.

“Mycroft,” Sherlock trills from the hallway – one of his better moods then, or he wouldn’t bother to announce himself before popping into what Mycroft deems his sanctum, his Eden of privacy. When Sherlock is around, privacy may as well be stricken from his lexicon. “ _Chaíre_ ," he greets. "Help me with my homework, will you?”

A colourful concoction of notes accompanies Sherlock through the door. (Prêtre's rendition of Bizet; mummy is elated to see Mycroft again.)

"You don’t need help, Sherlock," Mycroft answers without turning from his transcripts. "You just want someone else to do it. I’m busy.”

"You're always busy when I ask you. That's not even an excuse anymore."

The door clicks shut in his wake and blocks out the music. Stifling a sigh – because now his mind would rattle through the whole score of Carmen just to spite him – Mycroft swivels to face his brother. 

And stares.

"What is this?" Mycroft, having recovered from his initial surprise, conveys his suspicion through the arch of an eyebrow.

“You can see what it is,” Sherlock sneers. Of course he can’t stoop to state the obvious for Mycroft – it would be insipid and dull and _pointless_ , because why was Mycroft gifted with two functioning ocular organs if he doesn’t _use_ them? Something along that line of reasoning, Mycroft supposes. Sometimes it amuses him how his perceived laziness affronts Sherlock; other times, however, Sherlock’s astounding denseness aggravates him: he may read people, but doesn’t understand them. Doesn’t understand Mycroft’s desire to hear _Sherlock_ explain everything using his own words, his own thoughts, his own voice. 

Mycroft knows the inside of his own mind, the lack of newness there is positively stifling. Why rely solely on his own senses to solve every riddle? Isn't _that_ insipid? Conversely, Sherlock's take on matters is fascinating and Mycroft wants him to rearrange the furniture of his mind palace, deface the tapestry, disturb the setting, so he can view them in a new light.

“Obviously. Let me rephrase my question: is this your homework?”

“In a way,” Sherlock chuckles, and picks at the item in question. "Don't you like it?"

The dress looks ridiculous on Sherlock: straining the buttonholes below the throat and swaying loose about the hips ( _Mummy's summer dress, fabric become soft from frequent washings, well-loved then, but not worn recently: it wafts of the wardrobe and detergent, not mummy's fragrance; must be uncomfortable too, Sherlock despises confinement, so clearly this is a game, likely to get a rise out of Mycroft or at least observe his reaction._ ). It brings back a memory from two or three years ago, when Sherlock barged into his room, demanding to be taught about sex and relishing Mycroft's look of surprise before producing sheets that depicted human reproductive organs in need of labeling.

Mycroft clears his throat. "I won't grace that with an answer."

“So you do like it.”

“You’re going to ruin it." _Like you ruin everything_ , he wants to add. _Household appliances, marriages, me._

“Mummy doesn’t even wear it anymore. You would know if you were here more often.” A hint of accusation trembles in the words, although it had no place there. Sherlock was away from home as much as Mycroft.

Mycroft turns back to his translation, but his senses are trained on Sherlock, listening to the faint whisper of cloth, the soft tread on the carpet. He half-expects Sherlock to drape himself across his back like he did in younger days, claiming to better understand if he viewed the problems from Mycroft's standpoint instead of having them handed down to him.

Sherlock's presence is distracting, has been for years, an interference signal he can't block out. It may have to do with the transition into adulthood, or growing up separately. They aren't exactly close, and neither are they comfortable around each other – not as he supposes normal brothers to be.

Sherlock skulks closer and pulls up the chair from Mycroft's second desk (Sherlock's actually, a compromise of the past, when he wanted to simultaneously be taught and learn everything by himself, so Mycroft allowed him to use his room, as much to comply as to keep an eye on his brother). Mycroft winces as a stack of papers lands on his transcripts ("What is it with you and Sappho?"). Let there not be smudges, he thinks. 

_What constitutes masculinity in our society? Give examples of the expectations boys and men face today, what behaviour is considered appropriate and what is not,_ the top sheet reads. Somewhat ironic, given that he's reading Lesbian poetry.

"It looks to me like you've already done your homework, Sherlock. What would you need me for, hm?" Mycroft's composure rebounds into place, as he wipes his pen clean with a tissue and caps the ink bottle before Sherlock can knock it over somehow.

"Those aren't mine," he says, crosses his legs and rests one naked foot at the edge of Mycroft's seat, as if his ankle-flashing has anything to do with the topic. And certainly, it's not appropriate behaviour, but neither is Mycroft's when his eyes travel up the length of Sherlock's shin (cataloguing the flexing muscles beneath) to where it disappears beneath the folds at the knee – and his tongue wants to follow.

Taken aback by the fierceness of this desire, he tears his eyes away. To meet a challenge in Sherlock's own, one he reads as _touch me if you dare_.

No. Surely his reading is projection and the challenge is still about the essay, whether Mycroft will bite or not. It's like he doesn't recognise his brother anymore and not because of the dress-up.

"I wanted to hear what you think," this pale-eyed stranger says and steeples his fingers, a very grown-up and calculating gesture.

"I think you should first take this off," Mycroft says before realising his mistake.

“Suit yourself,” Sherlock shrugs, and stands up. There's a popping of buttons and the dress drops from his shoulders.

 _Light of my life, fire of my loins_ , it shoots through Mycroft's head – Sherlock is completely bare underneath! – and it's both so fitting and so inappropriate as to be almost ludicrous. Yes, he yearns to touch his brother and it's mortifying: isn't he the prodigious son, the model student, the bar set for so many? Yet here he is, a pedophile, lusting after his own brother.

Sherlock steps from the crumpled cloth as from sea foam, the young god born from the ocean waves, liquid-smooth skin gleaming in perfect lighting, as though he’s practised this in various locations to determine what maximises the effect. Others may describe him as sticks and angles, but to Mycroft, he is beautiful, like one of the curly-haired youths depicted on cups and vases that enraptured philosophers and free men alike – _erómenós mou_ , my beloved.

“Sherlock, you—” Mycroft actually gapes as he takes him in. Sherlock doesn't seem uninterested either, his prick is stirring, glans peeking from under his foreskin. Mycroft doesn't dare think what comes to his mind, but even after twenty-two years of practice, there are questions he can't censure. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

He licks his lips and that's definitely the wrong move at the moment. Sherlock's gaze is glued to his mouth and he inclines his head an infinitesimal fraction, barely noticeable, but Mycroft catches it anyway, because it looks like Sherlock is tracing the path of his tongue and yes, yes, Mycroft wants him to follow, to lean in and to—

“Is it working?” Sherlock smirks, _regard impudent, mine coquette_.

"Insolent brat", Mycroft says and stares at him flatly. _You don't even need to seduce me, and oh Lord, what am I thinking?_ Does Sherlock know what he's playing at?

“Fine, then: I’m not.”

And for the first time in minutes, Mycroft allows himself to breathe. Just one demand dropped in the wrong place derailed their whole conversation. But Sherlock seemed prepared, he's been waiting for it. Waiting to get under his skin.

Mycroft tries to wrest his eyes away, tries to turn back to his translation, tries not to reach out and tug his brother toward him, but then Sherlock moves on his own, leaning closer, stopping mere inches from his face. _Oh, Enchanter, I implore thee, spare me, O prince, this agony and anguish. Crush not my spirit._

"But you want me to, don't you?" he says, and Mycroft can almost taste his hot breath on his lips, peppermint-fresh. Sherlock reaches out to touch Mycroft's neck, runs his thumb along his jawline, up his cheek, and the trail burns with pins and needles. He leans closer with every word. "Don't hide it, Mycroft. You never look at me if you can help it and when you do, you're mentally undressing me. So I'm only helping you along. I hate it when you don't look at me; I hate it when you lie to yourself."

There's only a hair's breadth between their lips; Mycroft can't recline any further. Anger blooms inside his chest like paint hitting a wall. But Sherlock is not the target of this anger for knowing, it's himself for not hiding it well enough. Still, he wants to tie him up with his dress and spank him for his insolence.

Sherlock's eyes are boring into his own, searching, searching and finding, and Mycroft wonders not for the first time when his brother has become so exquisitely dangerous.

When Sherlock closes the gap, his world comes crashing down.

How can he want this, too? Does he not see that this pointless desire leads nowhere?

Mycroft's effort to resist melts in his mouth. He can deny himself, but how can he deny Sherlock? What harm can there be in a kiss, an innocent brushing of lips – oh, so much harm, when the intensity grows and Sherlock's searing tongue slides against him and his fingers too, when Mycroft's skin jumps under the shift and crinkle of fabric, when Sherlock straddles his thighs and a hand snakes between them to graze his trousers and through them cup his rapidly hardening—

Mycroft jolts upright, tossing Sherlock off him, and he tumbles against the cherrywood desk. The rattle sends paper flying and the ink flask crashes to the floor.

"Fuck, Mycroft!"

"Sherlock!" Mycroft seethes, but this isn't the right time to be angry with his brother, there will never be a time when he can hold his anger against him. Especially not when he's cringing on the floor, naked and vulnerable, rubbing his head and glaring at him.

"It wasn't my fault!"

Then Mycroft crouches over the papers, fishing them out of this mess, trying to save his carefully crafted words from bleeding into nothingness. He reaches for the tissues on his desk, but the damage is done, the addressed masculinity in Western society blotted out and the topic laid to rest.

Mycroft looks up when his brother comes to stand before him. He is pale now, still shaken, and his earlier arousal has disappeared as well.

"Leave it," he says and drops the dress into the puddle before Mycroft can stop him.

He watches in amazed horror as blue tendrils creep up and into it. "This was mummy's favourite dress!" Ruined now, as predicted.

"Correct: was. I told you, she doesn't wear it anymore."

Mycroft shakes his head in disbelief, suddenly bone-weary. "I ought to spank you for this."

Sherlock puffs out an amused breath. "I might like that," he says, but for once it isn't a challenge.

"Get out, Sherlock."

He will need to burn the dress before anyone finds it and starts wondering – surely he could have used a better suited rag to clean up this mess – and then have someone quickly sweep up the puddle before it ruins the hardwood floorboards.

Moreover, he's in dire need of a cold shower.

*

At dinner, Mycroft finds himself in the company of a glowing mummy, who queries him on his new career path, and an uncharacteristically well-behaved – and fully clothed, thank goodness – Sherlock, who never once glances in Mycroft's direction.

Except for that one time he drops his fork – almost throws it, actually – under Mycroft's chair and Sherlock, instead of getting up to retrieve it, twists in his seat and leans over.

"Sherlock," Mycroft nearly drops his own cutlery when Sherlock's head nestles in his lap and his hand travels down his trouser leg. "I could have picked that up for you."

Sherlock hums against his thigh, sound waves rippling down his muscles – and up into his loins.

"So nice of you, Mycroft, to volunteer getting your hands dirty for me."

Sherlock straightens and his fork clinks against the china, but the hand stays dangerously long on Mycroft's thigh, applying just enough pressure to be this side of bearable.

"But I'm fairly capable of it myself." 

Oh, his hand leaves a cold, sore spot on Mycroft when it withdraws but it's nothing against the heat that spikes in his prick when Sherlock's fingers snake behind his own waistband and – oh no, he wouldn't. Mycroft stares as Sherlock's hand opens the trouser button and disappears inside.

Mycroft's heavy chair screeches on the floorboards as he stands. Mummy and the maid she is talking to turn their heads in unison.

"Thank you for the meal," he says. It's a pity about the food.

"What about your pudding, Mycroft?" Sherlock teases, as though suggesting himself as dessert. (That may even be his objective, as it is: he has been stealing Mycroft's sweets, knowing full well it leaves him craving. They are the only indulgence Mycroft allows himself; without them, he would need another source of pleasure soon. You can only avoid temptation for so long.)

"Don't slouch, Sherlock," Mycroft says and leaves.

*

Upon entering his room, the lingering ink-smell greets him with an echo of the afternoon scene. Mycroft downs a half-glass of the scotch he keeps locked in his bottom desk drawer, and welcomes the burn that relocates to his throat but grimaces under its weight. He pours himself another, to be nursed with more restraint, and absently formulates all the possible excuses for leaving in the morning and disappointing mummy with the shortness of his stay.

That night, Mycroft twists in his sheets to the tune of Sarasate's Fantasy on _Carmen_ that mirrored his deep yearning and fluttering desire. Sherlock – the _dolóploke,_ the wile-weaver – is playing it on purpose: Mycroft's adoration of the piece is no secret. _L'amour est un oiseau rebelle_ , he agrees.

Although Mycroft can only imagine the pizzicati because the walls swallow them, he can almost feel Sherlock plucking the bowstrings – and the ghost of his deft fingers brushes against his inner thigh again. Mental defences weakened by the onslaught of Sherlock's spiraling glissandi, Mycroft escapes to the bathroom and finishes himself off harshly.

The notes still wrack through him as he finally succumbs to sleep's blissful forgiveness.

*

Mycroft starts awake to the crash of thunder. Rain washes down in Biblical proportions, a punishing deluge. Though it isn't so much the sound of heaven breaking apart that has his skin crawling with goosebumps, but the presence of a warm body next to him.

Light flashes for a second to the rasp of steel against flint. A familiar spicy, earthen aroma soon fills the room, adding to Mycroft's hunger.

"Have you now stooped to accosting me in my bed, Sherlock?"

"Afraid of thunderstorms, remember?" he says, and exhales.

"I thought you had outgrown this."

"Phobias aren't age-restricted, Mycroft."

"Smoking is. Don't tell me you're doing it in here, so mummy won't find out." Guided by the glowing ember, Mycroft reaches out to pluck the cigarette from Sherlock's fingers. A drag is all he wants – or, more precisely: needs – but the brushing of skin stabs him like a knife again.

" _Est-ce que cela toi met l'âme en fête?_ " Sherlock asks, a chapeau to his earlier performance. Mycroft isn't entirely sure what his brother thinks exhilarates him.

" _La fumée monte doucement à la tête, c'est certain._ "

Mycroft can almost taste Sherlock's hesitation. "Show me."

The rational part of Mycroft's mind knows this isn't a good idea, knows he'd now be corrupting a minor in earnest, knows Dante will soon find him among carnal sinners, but his reason is swayed by lust, or else drowned out by alcohol and fatigue. _Come then, I pray, grant me surcease from sorrow, drive away care, I beseech thee._

Sherlock's eager fingers have crawled toward his face, to guide it back to him, and Mycroft nuzzles his palm, placing a kiss on it. He adores Sherlock's hands, their potential for both destruction and the building of so many worlds through his music.

He slides closer then, leaning over Sherlock, whose fingers have slid down Mycroft's neck and are busying themselves with the pyjama buttons they find there. Careful not to burn Sherlock, he brings the cigarette to his mouth again and inhales deeply. Sherlock meets him halfway, unable to wait, and when their lips lock, Mycroft breathes the smoke from his lungs and Sherlock sucks it up as if it were water and he's dying of thirst.

Before he can remember the health risks concerning second-hand smoke, Sherlock has filched the cigarette and pressed Mycroft into his pillows.

"Let me," he whispers and his knees dig into the mattress on either side of Mycroft. The glow of the cigarette brightens and casts Sherlock's concentrated features in a soft orange light before travelling to his bedside table, where it extinguishes with a hiss.

Then his mouth is on Mycroft's again, pushing acrid air into him and his lungs burn and so does his skin, because Sherlock is touching it, trying to push his pyjama top off his shoulders, and Mycroft sits up to let him. His fingers come alight around Sherlock's middle and goodness, his prick jumps when he realises that Sherlock isn't wearing anything. He groans and mouths a trail down Sherlock's neck, sinks his teeth into the trapezius muscle and wants to suck out every hitch in Sherlock's breathing. Here, in the near-blackness of his room, he can allow himself to enjoy what he dared not face in the full glare of the afternoon. He'd be distracted by sight, by Sherlock's eyes on him, by not knowing what to read in them.

Sherlock tastes of soap and salt, and Mycroft can feel every bump on his skin, every growing bristle, every shudder of excitement. This, oh, this is the culmination of his waking dreams, to hold Sherlock and have him tremble beneath him, clutching at his soft shoulders – so different from Sherlock's bony ones. 

He slides around then, melding against Sherlock's back, needing to reach more him. He tips him over, pressing his hands into the mattress, and his still-clothed erection grazes his bottom. Sherlock inhales sharply and rocks against him.

"So greedy," Mycroft says, low by his ear and Sherlock moans as Mycroft's teeth scrape the spot behind his earlobe. "Base little creature."

His fingers ghost down his spine, barely touching, and his mouth follows. Sherlock's head shoots up when Mycroft spreads his arse, but drops down onto his arms again when Mycroft's tongue slides into the ridge. Sherlock whimpers every time Mycroft licks him, and his hole twitches; so young, so inviting. Mycroft pushes the tip of one finger inside and a groan dies in Sherlock's throat.

"Is this what you wanted?" he asks, working the finger deeper, forward and back, easing into Sherlock.

Laboured breathing answers him. What a beautiful sound.

"Tell me."

A groan escapes his brother. " _Baise-moi_ , Mycroft."

It should be impossible that the soft bilabials and humming alveolar sounds – as opposed to the harsh fricative and velar plosive of their English counterpart – have such a grasping effect on Mycroft, but here he is, almost shaking with desire and impatience. He'd hurt Sherlock if he took advantage of him now. He isn't prepared for this; neither of them are.

Still, he has to, he has to have him now, he's gone too long denying himself, denying Sherlock. Forgetting his manners – if manners can be said to play a role during sex – he spits into his hand, pushes down his trouser bottoms and fists his prick. Sherlock tenses as Mycroft nudges his saliva-coated erection between his thighs, against his scrotum, then snaps his legs shut at Mycroft's guidance.

"Close your legs. There. Yes, that's it."

Mycroft moves slowly at first, almost overwhelmed to the point of breaking, but can't hold it up for long; this is too intense. He loosens his grip on his brother's hips to reach around and encircle his waist to steady them for quicker, sharper thrusts. Sherlock's dripping length digs into his forearm and he jerks into his touch, when Mycroft's fingers close around it. His ragged breathing matches his rhythm now.

"Mycroft, I can't—" Sherlock tries to tell him he's close, and true, Mycroft's wrist flicks only three-four more times before he quivers and groans into the sheets as he comes. And that voice is enough to do Mycroft in. He presses his forehead against his brother's damp shoulder blades and with the next snap of hips, he comes between Sherlock's thighs, soiling them. 

*

Mycroft wakes hours later to an aching absence of Sherlock and wonders briefly which sensation clouding his mind has been but a dream. His bed smells of sweat and sex and Sherlock, and Mycroft feels grimy. He needs to wash, so he rolls off the mattress to trudge to the bathroom.

His movements are sluggish and laboured, as though he has forgotten how to use his limbs.

In the bathroom, he finds Sherlock, one leg propped up on a stool and lathered white, a bowl of water steaming next to him.

"That's my razor," Mycroft says, and moves past him to get a towel. 

"And a good one, too."

He scrubs the damp towel over his face. "Did you sleep at all?"

Sherlock makes a sound partway between affirmation and let-me-think-about-that. "A bit. You were wonderfully still. Not your usual restless self."

Mycroft eyes him askance. "You watch me in my sleep?"

"Used to. Hardly had the chance to lately, you know." There it is again, that faint accusation, but it sounds more wistful now, if anything.

"Ever wondered if it was your presence that made me restless?"

Now Sherlock's eyes crinkle as he grins. "It does."

"Brat," Mycroft says and slaps him with the towel. Then, after some silence, he adds, "Why did you do it?"

Sherlock stops in mid-stroke and looks up. "Do what?" he asks, voice airy and innocent.

Mycroft smiles wryly. "Use your head, Sherlock."

"Use yours." Sherlock glares back, mouth set. But Mycroft continues staring. Finally, Sherlock sags somewhat and says lightly, "You know hormone-driven teenagers."

"You may be driven, Sherlock, but hormones aren't your propellants."

"Stupid people do it all the time; Mycroft," Sherlock sighs, a long-suffering mockery of Mycroft's own repertoire. "There must be some appeal to it."

"That still doesn't explain why you would— why me."

Sherlock glances away and shrugs. "You were available. You wanted me. It was easy."

"Charming."

"Of course, you're also the only one I could tolerate."

Sherlock doesn't mention wanting Mycroft's attention. They're not used to opening up to one another, or anyone. He can feel his brother's loneliness though, and it's his fault for not being there for him.

Sherlock stiffens when Mycroft snakes his arms around his middle and nuzzles the curls at his temple. Heat radiates from Sherlock's cheeks.

"Careful, or I'm going to cut you."

Mycroft chuckles. "It wouldn't be the first time."

**Author's Note:**

>  _Chaíre_ \- Greetings  
>  Mycroft quotes Sappho and _Lolita_ , and they both quote "Carmen":  
>  _regard impudent, mine coquette_ \- Impudent glance, saucy air  
>  _L'amour est un oiseau rebelle_ \- Love is a rebellious bird.  
>  _Est-ce que cela toi met l'âme en fête?_ \- Does this exhilarate you?  
>  _La fumée monte doucement à la tête, c'est certain._ \- The smoke rises gently to the head, that's for sure.  
>  _Baise-moi._ \- Fuck me.
> 
> Anything else I missed, let me know. :) Reviews are much adored. I live on feedback.


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